The view from outside the building.

150806 – Republican Debates.. NOT!

Yet again we are subjected to politics as presented by those who would direct how we are to vote.

A presidential debate should not be dictated by a performance of political performance stars who have at most 10 minutes to pontificate on inane and cute zinger questions that a large percentage of the US population can’t even see. The full panoply of US voters will be restrained from engaging as long as political debates are conducted under conditions that prohibit their engagement. The culprits are: “Pay for TV” and the lack of universal broadband for everyone.

The Washington Post is providing a running transcript of the Republican Debate of the “Ten”: HERE.

Like Fox News’ presentation of the “Party of Me, Me, no, ME!” tonight, CNN will dictate who is to watch the upcoming Democratic Debate. Who even owns the actual transcripts? The TV channels?

It seems a long time ago now that the League of Women Voters was tasked to present these debates.

You need basic cable for FOX News. You don’t need it for their network channel, which actually is much better than their news arm. think: Glee, Family Guy, American Idol, Masterchef, etc vs Bill O’Reilly, Fox and Friends, et al.

Here are some very rough figures that may help you understand the viewer situation. The data mixes the years of 2013, 2014, and 2015 so it isn’t as accurate as it could be. Moreover, while the population is continuing to grow, cable subscription is dropping again, something that last happened in 2008, at the start of the Great Recession.

The US Census figures for 2009-2013 indicate the following:

Estimated population for 2013 it was 316,497,531. (It’s higher for 2014, so there was growth.) I chose to leave in the numbers for children under 18, because I think they should have the opportunity to watch these events, but if you want to remove their figures, its an estimated 29.6% of the whole.

It’s not clear from the figures that Fox provides above, how many of the subscribers are businesses. However, since Telco is listed in the above subscriber base, it should be assumed that a portion of business subscription is included.

Leichtman Research states this about the Pay-For industry:

[The top thirteen pay-TV providers account for 95.2 million subscribers — with the top nine cable companies having 49.3 million video subscribers, satellite TV companies having 34.3 million subscribers, and the two top telephone companies having 11.6 million subscribers.]

Dividing the Leichtman subscriber count of 95.2 million by the Fox News stat of 74.8%, the amount of subscribers watching its news is closer to 71,209,600. So, something is amiss in the figures. Leichtman’s data includes only the top thirteen providers, or 95% of available providers in the US. Leichtman also notes that some portion of 95.2 million subscribers may be businesses. So, its figure of actual households may be inflated.http://www.leichtmanresearch.com/press/030315release.html

However, lets take the most optimistic numbers:

115,610,216 divided by 95,200,000 = 82.3% receive any Pay For TV. If the other Fox News stat is correct, 87,058,000 of those subscriber households were able to watch the debate. That means 75.3% households had access. 24.7% of the US households did not have access to our debates.

A reach of 82% is a pretty good success story if you are a group of Corporations; especially, at say, a minimum $80 a month per subscriber. Leichtman calls it market saturation. It’s a different story when discussing the issue of voter information. 25% were not allowed unadulterated access to the US debates and the information it might provide.

What else?

I know I keep harping on it, but those without Pay For TV or unlimited or at least reasonable broadband access can’t see C-Span either. Dial-up is darned slow to impossible. C-Span is one of the best opportunities to watch our government in action, without the editing and media scripting that happens in the news.

[In its last broadband deployment assessment, using the new 25Mbps/3Mbps standard, the FCC said it “determined that deployment was not reasonable and timely, finding that nearly 55 million Americans did not have access to broadband capable of delivering high-quality voice, data, graphics, and video offerings.”
The FCC found large differences in availability between urban and rural areas, and Wheeler said the FCC will further investigate that disparity.]